by Ian Douglas
So who needed the Marines?
And that, Garroway was increasingly convinced, was what had been responsible for his ROAD-like behavior, his determination to put in his time and get the hell out. He could do a lot better on the Outside; hell, he had a standing job offer from Vince Mayhew at Moravec. He didn’t need this shit.
Only now he was finding that he did…and that his dedication to the Corps had less to do with his oath to the country or the reason the Marines existed than it did with the people who were depending on him for leadership right here, right now.
Maybe the country didn’t need the US Marines, but he did.
The entire group was gathered once again in the main room of the Heinlein Station hab, the Marines in rows seated on the bare floor, the five scientists by themselves off to the left. Garroway had started, an hour earlier, to try to put together some sort of inspirational speech, but nothing he’d written down had worked. He would just have to ad-lib this one.
“People,” he said. “In the absence of specific orders from the military command authority, we have to assume that, as of this morning, we are at war.”
He had their full attention now. There was not a sound in the hab, and every eye in the room met his.
“Our orders were to safeguard American interests on Mars and, specifically, to protect the civilian research outpost at Cydonia, which, as I’m sure you all know, was somewhat, ah…controversial in certain quarters. That outpost has now been taken over by the UN. Two of our people were hurt. In the absence of specific orders from Earth, I must assume that that action was a hostile one. By capturing the Mars cat this morning, we have made our first strike back against the enemy. We now have the means to leave our prison and to carry the battle to the UN forces occupying our facilities.
“I’ve discussed my intentions with a number of you this morning, so you know what I have in mind. It is my intention to take the Mars cat and march on Candor Chasma, 650 kilometers east of here. I intend to leave this afternoon, within the next hour, if possible.”
A babble of voices rose from the Marines and from the scientists as well. Garroway raised both hands, motioning the room to silence. “The march,” he continued, “will be difficult…and dangerous. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before, and we have only a very spotty knowledge of the terrain between here and there. Our biggest problem is going to be water, because, as I understand it, permafrost tends to be kind of patchy along the Valles Marineris, and we can’t count on finding drill sites that will come up wet. We’ll carry as much water as we can manage, but I’m afraid we’re going to be on short rations for most of the trip.”
“Now just a damned minute!” The protest came not from one of the Marines, but from Dr. Kettering, standing off to the side with the other scientists. “You can’t seriously be thinking of dragging us all across four hundred miles of Martian desert!”
“You are welcome to stay, Doctor,” Garroway replied. He turned to face the Marines. “In fact, this is strictly a volunteer-only mission. Any of you who want to stay behind may do so. There’s plenty of food, and we’ll leave the drilling equipment.”
That brought a startled reaction from some of the Marines. “Sir!” Ostrowsky said, raising her hand. “You mean we’re crossing the desert without water?”
Garroway exchanged glances with Devora Druzhininova, who silently nodded. “I’ve discussed the plan with Dr. Druzhininova,” he said. “Maybe I should let her tell us about that.”
Druzhininova didn’t leave the group of scientists. She simply folded her arms and began addressing the entire group. “You all know that most of Mars’s water—a whole ocean of it, in fact—exists beneath the planet’s surface as permafrost…essentially frozen mud buried beneath anywhere from two to twenty meters of regolith.
“The permafrost layer is not uniform over the entire planet, however. It’s much thicker in the north polar regions, especially north of about forty degrees north latitude, where the Boreal Sea existed once. Cydonia Prime depends on the permafrost left when that sea froze, billions of years ago. It’s almost nonexistent around the equator, though. Here in the Mariner Valley, most of the ice was melted a billion years ago by the raising of the Tharsis Bulge to the west.”
“We’ve got water wells here,” Lance Corporal Julia Higgins called out. “What do you think that drill out back is for?”
“Subsurface fossil water. There are deep pools kept liquid by volcanism, even yet. Heinlein Station and Mars Prime are both positioned over fairly large water traps, but we can’t expect to find more between here and there. I’m afraid we’ll be limited to what we can carry…and what our suits and the life-support gear on the Mars cat can recycle.” She looked at Garroway. “I wish I had happier news.”
“That’s okay, Doctor,” he replied. “Lieutenant King and I have gone over the numbers. We’ll be able to carry enough with us to last, if we’re careful.”
He paused a moment, taking the time to study the expressions on the faces of the men and women before him. Some looked afraid or worried, some determined. Most simply looked attentive, as though this were simply another briefing at the start of a rugged but routine training exercise.
He suddenly felt incredibly, inexpressibly proud of these people.
“I need to know,” he told them, “how many of you are coming along.”
Almost as one, people began standing up…Ostrowsky and Jacob making it to their feet first, but the rest within a second or two. They stood before him at attention, as though on the parade ground, and Garroway felt his pride swelling even more.
David Alexander and Dr. Druzhininova both crossed the floor and joined the Marines, followed a reluctant moment later by Edward Pohl; Craig Kettering and Louis Vandemeer remained where they were, arms folded, expressions shuttered.
Well, he hadn’t expected the civilians to embrace this madness. He needed either Alexander or Druzhininova—he’d discussed the matter with them an hour ago—and was pleased that both of them, and Pohl, would be coming along. The other two should be safe enough here until someone came by to pick them up.
He did know that he wanted no one along who wasn’t committed to the mission’s success.
“Thank you, everyone,” he said. “I knew I could count on you all. Be seated.”
“What we’re about to do,” he told them as they resumed their places on the floor, “is going to be difficult. It’s never been done. But it’s also not without precedent. How many of you remember Presley O’Bannon?”
Perhaps a dozen hands went up—mostly those of the older Marines, the NCOs and senior people. Some of the younger ones looked uncertain. Others wore blank expressions that suggested they’d read about the incident in their Corps manuals and promptly forgotten it. The O’Bannon saga was required reading for every Marine.
“Lieutenant Presley Neville O’Bannon was a twenty-year-old Marine from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Kentucky who, in 1805, commanded a detachment of seven US Marines on a march from Alexandria, Egypt, to Derna, in what is now the People’s Glorious Jihad of Islamic Revolution. The march was led by Thomas Eaton, the US consul to Tunis and, besides the Marines, included about five hundred Arab revolutionaries and Greek mercenaries.
“That was during our war against what were then called the Barbary States…Tripoli, in particular, the worst of the lot. Eaton had hatched a plan to help an Arab exile named Hamet overthrow his brother, who was pasha of Tripoli at the time, and install a government friendly to the United States, ending once and for all Tripoli’s habit of capturing American seamen and holding them for ransom.
“O’Bannon and his Marines helped Eaton achieve the impossible. They prevented an Arab mutiny along the way by seizing the expedition’s food stores. When they reached Derna, they led a charge that carried the defenses of the city, which happened to be Tripoli’s most important territorial holding. Two Marines died in the attack, and two more, including O’Bannon, were wounded. O’Bannon himself raised the Stars and Str
ipes over Derna’s fortress, the first time the American colors were raised in battle in the Eastern Hemisphere. The action won for the US Marines both the line in the Marine Corps Hymn referring to ‘the shores of Tripoli’ and the Mameluke design of the Corps officer’s curved dress sword.” He grinned. “And you Marines who didn’t know all that have some studying to do!”
He paused as the men and women laughed, then went on, more seriously. “O’Bannon and his men accomplished an impossible march, six hundred miles across the Sahara Desert in something just over six weeks. We’ve only got four hundred miles to cross, and we have a Mars cat to do it with instead of O’Bannon’s camels. I think we’ll be able to do a bit better than he did!”
“So how long is it going to take us, Major?” Corporal Hayes asked.
Garroway took a deep breath. He’d had two answers ready, a short one based on the assumption that everyone would be able to travel inside the captured Mars cat, and a longer one calculated on the need for some to ride—or walk—outside. If only six or eight had volunteered, it would have been possible to make the trip to Mars Prime in less than two days.
But that, of course, would have raised rather serious additional difficulties; taking on the UN contingent that was probably stationed at Candor Chasma with eight Marines would have been chancy at best.
“If we’re lucky,” he told them, “we’ll be able to complete the trip in about a week. Since we’ll be facing extreme conditions, however, and uncertain terrain, I’m planning on the march taking at least two weeks, and quite possibly more.”
“Major, you can’t seriously be considering this,” Vandemeer said.
“You two will be safe enough here,” he told them. “The UN soldiers in the cat were supposed to report in every so often. When they don’t report in tonight, someone will be on the way to check up on the place. When they get here, you’ll be able to tell them, quite truthfully, that you wanted nothing to do with this scheme.”
“We’ll tell them where you’re going!”
“Go ahead. They’ll know as soon as they find out we’re gone.” He grinned. “Even with us following the Mars cat’s tracks all the way to Mars Prime…well, it’s a damn big desert!”
“Damn it, Major!” Kettering said. “You could be starting a war!”
“Those people have already started it, Doctor,” Garroway said, nodding toward the airlock and the bodies of the UN troops now lying on the cold Martian sand. “All we’re going to do is finish it.”
FIFTEEN
MONDAY, 28 MAY: 0705 HOURS GMT
PRA Flight 81
60,000 feet above the Pacific
Ocean
1605 hours Tokyo time
According to the data displayed on the seatback screen, the Pacific Rim Airlines Amagiri transport was nearly at its maximum altitude of sixty thousand feet. The countdown readout in the corner showed 30…29…28…
Kaitlin double-checked her seat restraints, then gripped the handrests firmly, not from terror but from excitement. She’d never flown a suborbital before, and this one—one of the Lockheed Ballistic 2020s, better known to the businessmen who flew them as Yankee Bullets—was just about to drop from the Amagiri and boost for space.
Space. She was excited by the idea, more excited than she’d thought she would be. Star Rakers employed on intercontinental runs typically cruised at 100,000 to 150,000 feet, but suborbitals actually grazed the arbitrary boundary of space—264,000 feet, or fifty miles. People who’d crossed that boundary were entitled to wear astronaut wings; PRA handed out gold-plated wings as souvenirs, she knew, as a promotion, to everyone who’d ridden one of their sub-Os. They could afford to, of course. She shuddered to think what her AmEx bill would look like next month, but it was worth it!
The countdown reached zero, and, for a few precious seconds, Kaitlin felt the elevator-descent sensation of free fall as the delta-winged sub-0 fell from beneath the broad, twin-fuselaged wing of the Amagiri transport.
The rocket boost, when it came, surprised her by being so gentle. The acceleration built steadily, though, until she was pressed deep into her seat. What a ride! She remembered her father’s v-mail description of the exhilaration he’d felt during his boost into orbit last year. “Like a real kick in the pants,” he’d told her.
I know what you mean now, Dad.
The boost dragged on until she almost wondered if the pilot had made a mistake and was going to take them into orbit after all, but then she began to feel lighter and lighter and then…nothing. The engines cut out, and she was weightless. The screen readout on the seatback in front of her showed altitude in both miles and kilometers. They were passing forty miles, now, and still rising higher with every passing moment.
Though it might have been fun, she thought, to float about the cabin, she was glad for the seat restraints. She was also suddenly very glad for the tridemerin patch on her left arm as she heard the unmistakable sounds of someone across the aisle being sick. Pacific Rim attendants had offered the antispacesickness patches to all the passengers, requiring all who refused the medicine to thumbprint a waiver; apparently at least one of her fellow passengers had availed himself of the waiver option…and was now availing himself of his complimentary comfort bag.
Fifty miles…fifty-one! She was in space! There were no windows in the sub-O’s passenger section, but a repeater screen at the front of the cabin showed a nose-camera view of the sky ahead, black above and black below, separated by a curved band of glorious blue radiance. The Bullet was passing the terminator now, plunging into night. She grinned suddenly. She’d actually made it past the magic fifty-mile barrier before Yukio! He’d be so jealous if he knew. It’d be good for him!
Now for Uncle Walt. She’d not wanted to transmit on one of the Japanese e-nets, not and run the risk of having her call intercepted. The suborbital, though, had a direct feed to a comsat, and the channel ought to be secure. Checking her wrist-top, she did a quick conversion in her head. With the eight-hour time difference, it would be about twelve-twenty at night at Camp Pendleton. She didn’t want to wake him…but she didn’t feel like hanging on to this message by herself for another eight or nine hours either. Tuning her wrist-top to the seatback screen in front of her, she pinged his home account. All right! He was in and hooked up. She transmitted a connection request…and in a few seconds was looking at the worry lines and prematurely receding hairline of one of her oldest friends.
Colonel Walter Fox broke into a huge grin when he saw her. “Kaitlin! So good to see you! How’re you doing? What’re you doing? Where are you?”
“That last is the easiest to answer, Uncle Walt,” she said with a mirror grin. “I’m at, oh, about fifty-five miles up over the Pacific right now.”
He whistled. “Flying high in more ways than one, aren’t you, Chicklet?” he said, using his own mangled version of her Japanese nickname. “Those suborbs don’t come cheap.”
“Well, it…seemed important to get back to port right away. Listen, Uncle Walt,” she said quickly, before he started asking questions. “I got a message from, ah, a mutual friend. I’d like to transmit it to you now.”
He nodded and said nothing while the message was being transferred from Kaitlin’s wrist-top to the suborb’s communications relay to a communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit and then to a downlink station at Camp Pendleton and finally to Fox’s wrist-top. He stared at his display, raised his left eyebrow, then studied the screen some more.
“Did our…mutual friend transmit this to you in the clear?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No.” Walter Fox knew all about the Garroways’ penchant for codes. There was no need for her to be more specific, especially over a channel whose security she wasn’t able to verify. Maybe she was being paranoid—there’d been no indication that she had been followed or was being watched while she was in Japan—but, hey, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
“Good. Okay, what flight are you on?”<
br />
“PRA 81 inbound for LAX. Uncle Walt? Do you suppose I could stay with you and Aunt Melanie for a few days?” She laughed, a mirthless chuckle. “My vacation sort of got interrupted, and I’m somewhat at loose ends right now.”
“Mmm,” he grunted, deep in thought. “Kaitlin, do you know how to get a message back to…our friend?”
“Yes. The, ah, normal channels seem to be down, but we have a back door.”
“Excellent. Okay, this won’t wait. Look…I’ll talk to you later.”
And Kaitlin was left staring, dumbfounded, at a blank screen. Uncle Walt wasn’t usually so abrupt. He probably wanted to let the base commander know about the message before it got any later. She was stunned, though, and a little hurt, that he hadn’t even responded to her inviting herself over. Well, she could always spend the night at an airport hotel and then call Aunt Melanie in the morning.
Then she realized that his abruptness was a confirmation. She’d been right. Getting her dad’s message through was important. She was now very, very glad she’d followed her hunch and taken the suborbital. If what had happened on Mars was a prelude to war, and if she’d stayed on in Japan, she might have found herself unable to leave. And she would have been the only one on the planet to know what had gone down …and she wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing about it.
In a surprisingly short time the descent warning sounded, followed by a period of gradually increasing weight and a growing shudder. The nose-camera view was beginning to show a pearly opalescence, deep red, tinted pink on the edges, as the Bullet plowed back into thicker atmosphere, killing velocity with a series of vast, computer-controlled S-sweeps across the northeastern Pacific.
